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Open Hardware/Modding Leftovers
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Nico Cartron ☛ Review of the Gotek floppy simulator for the Amstrad CPC
I spent a bit of time looking at CPC stuff on eBay, and realised there were options to avoid using floppies, by replacing the internal floppy drive with e.g. a Gotek, which is a floppy simulator with a USB reader - you basically put our .dsk files on a USB stick, then plug the stick into the Gotek, and off you go.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ RISC-V Embedded Board Features TH1520 SoC, Dual GbE, and 4TOPS AI
The HH-SCDAYU800A is another RISC-V development board built around the Alibaba T-Head TH1520 system-on-chip. With its dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, multiple camera interfaces, and industrial-grade design, the board targets applications requiring multimedia features, edge inference, and smart device integration.
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HowTo Geek ☛ I Won't Buy a Mini PC for Plex Without These 4 Features
You can host a Plex media server on just about anything. But the most cost-effective option, at least in terms of performance, is a mini PC. A cheap $150 mini PC will get the job done, though there are a few things that I specifically look for when choosing a mini PC for Plex.
4 Modern Transcoding Capabilities
I treat transcoding like an unavoidable evil because, frankly, that's how it feels. If a smart TV doesn't support the codec or container of a movie on my server, the server needs to re-encode it. Friends who remotely tap into my server without adjusting their app settings will trigger a transcode every time they watch a video. Even something as mundane as subtitles can kick my machine into a resource-intensive transcoding session.
The free version of Plex only offers software transcoding, which chews through resources. But I own a Plex Pass membership and can take advantage of hardware transcoding—a far more efficient option. I just need a mini PC that can process multiple simultaneous video streams and accommodate modern codecs, like H.265.
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HowTo Geek ☛ 7 Raspberry Pi Projects to Try This Weekend
Do you have a Raspberry Pi lying around that you don’t know what to do with? With so many projects out there to do, it can be overwhelming to choose one. That’s what I’m here for.
I’ve found seven projects you can try out this weekend, ranging from running a private cloud or blog to hosting a Minecraft server. Most of these projects can be up and running in a few hours, leaving you the rest of the weekend to enjoy your new Raspberry Pi project.